Knabe, Schöb, and Weimann (2017) on the Well-Being of Workfare Participants

Andreas Knabe, Ronnie Schöb, and Joachim Weimann, “The Subjective Well-Being of Workfare Participants: Insights from a Day Reconstruction Survey.” Applied Economics 49(13), 2017.

• Workfare involves connecting unemployment benefits to participation in (public) employment.

• Unemployment is very bad for subjective well-being; the authors want to know if workfare is, too.

• The sample (usable n=1055) is drawn from German labor force participants, some working full-time (n=366), and some in long-term unemployment. Of the long-term unemployed, some (n=341) were participating in low-paid workfare jobs.

• The authors find through interviews (conducted in 2008) using the Day Reconstruction Method that self-reported life satisfaction of the workfare population is better than that of unemployed people, but not as high as that of employed people. This life-satisfaction boost is enjoyed both by those who were coerced into workfare jobs by the threat of losing benefits and those who voluntarily entered the workfare scheme.

• The affect (day-to-day happiness) of those on workfare is more positive than that of either the unemployed or the employed: workfare participants enjoy their hours working more than "regular" employees do.